


Degeneration

by CupidStrikes



Category: Tales of Xillia, Tales of Xillia 2
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Major late game spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 16:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2316581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CupidStrikes/pseuds/CupidStrikes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And what power is ever granted freely?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Degeneration

**Author's Note:**

> I thought Tales of Xillia was bad. I was wrong. This game is several hundred times worse (and I've only had the bad ending so far uuuuugh). So yes, this happened because I ended up liking this life-ruiner more than I should have done.
> 
> Enjoy?
> 
> Lyrics used are from 'Given and Denied' by Poets of the Fall.

Degeneration

  


_Give me back my innocence as I wish to dream again_   
_like I never outgrew my old playground_   
_where the sun sets slowly with a golden crown_   
_and the leaves sing lullabies 'round vacant swings._

  


It starts as just a tingling in the tips of his fingers. Julius dismisses it as poor circulation; it's getting colder now this late in the year, and the handles on his swords are colder too.

He takes to wearing gloves.

They prove useful. Now there is no spending half an hour making sure that every last scrap of dried blood is cleaned from under his fingernails. He can just rip the gloves off if they're too saturated in blood or other fluids to be salvageable - that kind of smell just doesn't wash out - he can just throw them away and get a new pair. They're inexpensive and expendable.

The gloves work for a while. It's a whole month before Julius notices his finger tips are actually numb, and when he removes the glove, expecting his fingers to be bloodlessly white beneath the black leather, he finds them a shade of dark red, as if he had stubbed them. He presses his hand beneath his arm and waits. He's on a break and he has time.

It takes half an hour the first time.

The second time, it takes forty-five minutes, and the numbness had spread down his fingers to his knuckles and enough that his grip on his weapons was sloppy. He had dropped one sword, and had bruises slowly blooming over his left side for his trouble. Perhaps he had trapped a nerve, or the repetitive motions had strained the muscle. Deciding to see a doctor when he returns to the prime dimension, Julius forces his fingers to obey and moves on. When the doctor finds nothing particular out of the ordinary and merely advises that Julius try some exercises and mind not to overwork himself, Julius thinks little of it. He tries the exercises, and when they don't work, he stops.

The tingling and numbness continues to spread. It is nearly six months to the day when the tingling turns to a cold burn, like plunging his hand into boiling water. He can't feel anything in his hand but the pain, and his fingers cramp up, curling into arthritic-looking claws that take two hours of gentle soaking in warm water to loosen up again. Ludger is witness to this, but Julius laughs it off with practised ease, ruffling Ludger's hair and teasing him about the perils of getting old. Ludger seems to buy it, or is irritated enough to drop it. In the same way that he can just about force the fingers of his left hand to feel and grip a weapon, it is enough.

It is just shy of eight months after the alien sensation began that Julius realises something is wrong.

He had known theoretically for a long time that over-use of the Chromatus had side effects (and what power had ever been granted freely? He knew of none), but had never quite managed to find out what kind. He had assumed that his control over it or its power might begin to wane, in the same way that Rieze Maxian mages would muddle spirit artes after a long time, or that the calculatrix in Spyrix would wear out after too many uses. Julius had also considered it might age him faster, taking his life force and mana in exchange. He had not anticipated....this.

After removing his blood-sodden gloves following a mission, he tosses them into the bathroom bin and runs a hand through his hair, looking in the mirror and going entirely still as he catches sight of his hand.

His fingers are blackened at the tips, as if burnt or stained with ink. When he swipes his thumb over the area he feels nothing but the uneven surface and strange warmness of the flesh. He presses a nail into the pad of his left index finger. He neither feels any pain over the dull ache, nor draws any blood. He can still move them, if anything they were less stiff than before, but the movement is slow and strange, as if he has no control over it. It is around this time that the nightmares begin, and Julius loses count of the times he wakes in the middle of the night, shivering as his damp pyjamas stick to his skin, from a dream where hands curl around his neck and don't let go. Sometimes the hands belong to people he knows: Bisley, Rideaux, Ludger. Mostly, they have no visible owner, and eventually, Julius realises, they are his own hands, both as black as the room around him, and cold like a corpse's. He begins to only find restful sleep if he pins his left hand beneath the pillow, unable to feel the weight of his head on top of it, not the lack of heat in his hand through the pillow. Within two weeks of the black stain first appearing, half of Julius's hand is black and barely responsive, and he realises, slowly, what is happening. What is corrupting and killing his flesh and demanding back what he had taken so freely until now.

He takes more care not to let on what is happening. He lets Ludger take care of more chores, laughs it off when his brother complains and makes out that he's tired or sore from work, or that he's getting too old and the young, spritely one ought to take care of his big brother. Ludger rolls his eyes and calls him an idiot more often than not, but after a while Julius notices that he's doing more and more to make sure that Julius can rest and something about that makes him feel sick inside.

Julius doesn't have time to dwell on these feelings. He has a job to do, and emotion will only hinder him now. The morning of Ludger's entrance exam, he wakes before the sun rises, before his alarm, and reaches for his glasses on the bedside table. He can hear Rollo pawing at the door already and knows it won't be long before the cat is mewing for his breakfast. Julius smiles to himself and grips the door handle. The black stain has spread to his wrist now and the ragged edges look like lace in the half-light of his bedroom.

It won't be long now.

Julius slips the glove on and opens the door.


End file.
